Reviews of Favorite Summer Yankee Candles

What are Favorite Summer Yankee Candles?

I recently went into my local Yankee store and there were no customers; just me and the sales person. We started chatting and I figured it would be fun to ask what the general customers’ favorite candles for the season are. So below are my reviews of all the candles she mentioned as being the Summer bestsellers.

Yankee Candle Turquoise Sky

What I can smell in Yankee Candle Turquoise Sky is sea water and some musk but sadly, it’s a bad mix for me. I’m a huge fan of all sea and ozone type smells and I have and use probably every Davidoff Cool Water fragrance ever released so I was certain I would love this and I bought a large Yankee Candle scented candle jar based on the description only.

Unfortunately this is a total miss for me. To me, it smells like one of those toilet spray thingies you buy at your local supermarket when you’re on a serious budget. I can’t get any grassy or green notes, I just get a very strong whiff of a generic, bathroom cleaner “ocean” note.

My brother loves it though, so my Yankee Candle Turquoise Sky is relocating to his bathroom. It’s in the core collection in 2019 and I’m pretty sure it will stay for a long time since it’s a staple for so many people.

Yankee Candle Beach Holiday

Yankee Candle Beach Holiday scented candle was released for Summer as a part of the two pieces UK Summer collection together with Wild Sea Grass and my local Yankee Candle Store never stocked it so I had to get it online. I have a small jar that I’ve burned a few times and a large jar I plan to take with me to our beach house. It’s very very strong so I’ll burn the large jar outside on the deck. Even with my current small jar of Yankee Candle Beach Holiday I need to blow it out after an hour because I find the smell too strong otherwise.

The notes in Yankee Candle Beach Holiday are ocean air, salt.

This is a typical Yankee Candle salt and ocean scent. Sadly, I find it to have a very bathroom cleaner kind of vibe. An expensive bathroom detergent, but still…not the luxurious scent I want when I grab a Yankee Candle. It’s a personal preference of course, but I seem to really dislike all of Yankee’s ocean type candles. I really couldn’t stand Turquoise Sky, I gave Ocean Star away and Beach Holiday I’m on the fence with. It will work as a deck candle I think because you really do get the ocean –or rather beach –air kind of note. It’s sharp, it’s salty and it’s super strong. So for outside, to pump up the actual beach air, I think I’ll like it. Inside, I have yet to find a place for my small Yankee Candle Beach Holiday jar. I’ve tried the bathroom and it’s too strong for that. I’ve tried the hall and I can only burn it for an hour before it fills the air too much. I’ll probably burn it in a guest bedroom and leave the door open so it will seep to the hall.

The small jar version of Yankee Candle Beach Holiday burns clean and even on its own, I get a nice wax pool after about half an hour and the throw is super strong.

The tarts in this scent are very strong as well and I only melt a quarter of a tart at a time to fill my entire great hall with the scent.

Yankee Candle Pink Dragon Fruit

Yankee Candle Pink Dragon Fruit scented candle is one of the two Fragrances of the Month together with Yankee Candle Ginger Dusk for the month of July. I have a small jar of this and I like it enough that I might pick up another one this month since Fragrances of the Month are 25% off at Yankee.

I get tropical fruit with a light floral undertone. I can’t really make out what the floral notes are but the floral note is a lot like the floral in Yankee Candle Tulips. I’ve eaten dragon fruit before and the scent isn’t true to life it’s much better and sweeter. It’s a great sweet summer fruit smell and I’ve given Pink Dragon Fruit jars as gifts many times and they’ve always been well received.

My small jar version of Yankee Candle Pink Dragon Fruit burns clean and even, I get a nice wax pool after about an hour and the throw is about 8. I burn this in my kitchen since that is where I prefer all food scents and my family loves it.

The votives in this scent are stronger than the candle and I only melt less than a quarter of a votive at a time for it to scent my kitchen. I would rate the scent throw of the melted votives a solid 9.

This might be getting retired in Europe in 2019.

Yankee Candle Garden Cucumber

Yankee Candle Garden Cucumber is currently available as a Treasure and it’s even on sale for half off on the large jar.

It smells so true to life that is amazing. I’m very impressed by how well this is done. It’s exactly like a fresh sliced home grown cucumber. The scent is fresh, crisp, refreshing. It’s an ideal scent for someone who likes to drink cucumber water or who connects the cucumber scent with spa and relaxation.

The throw on Yankee Candle Garden Cucumber is a 9. This is super strong, not the scent but the throw. The fragrance is fresh and not overpowering but it will carry all through the entire floor of my house.

I love this fragrance, I’ve stocked up on it for the summer. I do a lot of picnics and barbecues with friends and family and I find cucumber, melon and lemonade scents to be ideal for those type of occasions.

It’s only April and I’m already burning a jar. It’s so good as a morning candle and right now I’m alternating between this and Yankee Candle Aloe Water in the mornings.

Yankee Candle Rhubarb Crumble

Out of all the new late Summer European Yankee candles I was most excited for Yankee Candle Rhubarb Crumble. I love rhubarb scents but I mostly find good versions of rhubarb in perfume, candles can be a bit too candly-like.

I don’t mind sweetened rhubarb, I do get that the full rhubarb smell comes out when you add sugar, but I dislike the candy, fake smell that is often found in rhubarb scented candles.

Burning Yankee Candle Rhubarb Crumble, I do get a slight bakery note, with loads of brown sugar and bakery type vanilla. It’s very sweet and delicious but the rhubarb note is barely detectable. Rhubarb alone is this citrusy green, tart scent, that is usually mixed with a strawberry scent to balance out the sweetness in that. So it’s not a strong note to begin with and it’s difficult for it to stand out, especially with this much vanilla and sugar.

I’d say this is more of a vanilla cookie scent than rhubarb crumble. There is a tartness to the scent but that could easily be called lemon zest that goes into the cookie batter, it really doesn’t stand out.

If you want to smell rhubarb crumble, layer this one with Marks and Spencer’s Rhubarb Flower scented candle. That one is an awesome mix of rhubarb, apple and pear but has no bakery, so layer the two and it’s perfect.

Yankee Candle White Sage

Yankee Candle White Sage is another addition to the new scents for late Summer from Yankee Candle.

I love well made herbal fragrances as I think they are really versatile and guest friendly, combining both clean and calming effects while not leaning on either feminine or masculine side.

Reading the description of the scent I had high hopes and this scent turned out really nice. Yankee Candle White Sage smells like fresh, crushed sage with a bit of lemon zest, there’s a salty jasmine note floating underneath and all that is over a base of musky, soft sandalwood, warm amber and some vanilla that further softens the sandalwood and adds to the creaminess.

Yankee Candle White Sage is much better than Yankee Candle’s Sea Salt and Sage. They took the Sea Salt and Sage fragrance and added more notes, blending them together well and basically upgraded the initial fragrance not only into a autumnal version but a much better, more complex candle.

Yankee Candle Fruit Salad

One Yankee Candle is done with their summer sale, they’ll put out the new treasures and the rumors online say one of the fragrances brought back will be Fruit Salad.

I’ve burned Fruit Salad before and I can’t say it’s a massively memorable scent, but it is one of those that are ideal for scenting a kitchen during a summer barbecue when you have a bunch of guest running in and out of your house and you want something fresh, happy and inoffensive to a large number of noses.

Image by Yankee Candle

Melting my Yankee Candle Fruit Salad, it’s pretty much what you’d expect. I mostly got a fresh melon note, followed by a strawberry and an undertone of orange. All the notes are fresh and fruit-y, this is not a fruit candy or fruity drink type of fragrance.

If it’s not sweet enough for you, you can always add something like Watermelon Lemonade, it works great. I’ve also mixed it with Garden Cucumber and really liked the mixture.

The scent throw on half a wax tart was an 8, which is pretty great for a fruit fragrance.

Yankee Candle Sicilian Lemon

Yankee Candle Sicilian Lemon is the scent of the month for May at my local Yankee Store, meaning that the products with this fragrance are sold for 25% off. Since this is Europe, this is often as good as it comes in terms of discount on a Yankee Candle large jar. I’ve seen them go for 30% off as well but they were either display jars, meaning they’ve been set out, possibly with the lid of, and the wax and the label are often discolored and messed up so I stay clear of those or they were scents that were being discontinued in which case I did some wallet damage.

Now for May Fragrance of The Month the UK stores have Pain Au Raisin and Orange Splash but my local store has Sicilian Lemon so it’s obviously pretty much every country for itself when it comes to these.

Image by Yankee Candle

I’ve had Sicilian Lemon a few times over the years and I’ve given loads of them out as gifts as I find that they are very appealing to men as well as women and that makes this a good candle to keep around for when you don’t have the time or the energy to go present shopping.

This smells like a sweet, bright lemon with a bit of amber and white musk thrown in. The lemon is not astringent. It’s quite mellow and while it smells sort of sweet it’s not the sugar, lemonade or candy type sweetness. It’s a lovely take on a lemon fragrance, the bit of amber and musk take down any sharpness of the lemon and warm the scent up just enough to make it cozy. I’ve never smelled a cozy lemon scent without vanilla and loads of amber thrown in and that’s why this one is so special, since it manages to give you that feeling while keeping the lemon fragrance clean.

It’s one of my favorite morning candles and one that will definitely going with me to the beach this year.

Yankee Candle Sea Coral

Yankee Candle Sea Coral is a Yankee Treasure in Europe which means it’s only available for a short period of time and only in large jars.

I read the notes and I saw the musk note and I usually love Yankee musk heavy candles so in the cart it went.

Not much to go on here, note wise but burning Yankee Candle Sea Coral, I get a lot of musk but it’s salty, masculine musk as opposed to a sweet feminine white muck like say in Yankee Candle Lake Sunset. The freshness is there but there’s also a cologne note a weak woodsy undertone so the overall fragrance leans a bit masculine aftershave.

I won’t be keeping Yankee Candle Sea Coral, I don’t care for cologne type home fragrance at all so it’s probably relocating to either m brother’s or my friend’s house.

The scent throw on this was a 7 but I only burned it once so I can’t say if it gets stronger as it burns down as a lot of candles tend to do.

Yankee Candle Shoreline

Yankee Candle Shoreline is marketed on the UK Yankee Candle website as a USA exclusive. The funny thing is, that we’ve been able to buy it since the beginning of March and it’s still nowhere to be found in the USA.

This is a nice, summer floral scent. It’s very strong, definitely a strong 8 in scent throw, so if you’re sensitive to strong florals you might want to keep that in mind.

Yankee Candle Shoreline smells like a mix of orange blossom and hibiscus, so super fresh, citrusy florals. The base is a driftwood and white musk mix. The driftwood adds the salt note and the musk is typically added to the “beach” type scents to give us a sand and sun haze vibe. There is a watery top note but that’s very faint. Due to the name I was expecting it, so I could smell it from time to time, but mostly it’s the double floral mix with a musky driftwood base.

This pairs very well with Beach Waves and both will be going with me to our beach house this summer. Other ideas for fragrance layering are Yankee’s Plumeria, Tahitian Tiare Flower or Midnight Jasmine.

Yankee Candle Cuban Mojito

Yankee Candle Cuban Mojito is a very simple, straight forward scent, that smells even better than the drink and is perfect for summer parties and summer in general.

I do a lot of summer barbecues at the house and I’ll be getting a few jars of Yankee Candle Cuban Mojito for sure. It’s the type of scent that is extremely guest friendly and you can have a jar going when you’re serving food without worrying that the food scents and the candle fragrance will clash.

This fragrance works for all spaces of the house, I’d burn it in a kitchen but have no issues with it in a bathroom.

The scent is a simple mint and lime mix, with loads of sugarcane and a bit of vanilla. So it is very sweet, almost syrupy, but because you have the sugarcane with two extremely fresh notes in lime and mint, it doesn’t feel too sickly sweet and sticky but stays nice and fresh. The lime is done well, I don’t smell and “lemony toilet cleaner” in this at all.

Yankee Candle Viva Havana

Yankee Candle Viva Havana is a part of the EU and UK Summer Collection and it’s slowly being discontinued.

I’ve been to Cuba a few times in my early 20s and I have very fond memories of that time so I was very excited for this collection. Turns out, the first scent of the collection reminds me more of Tunis and Egypt than Havana. To be honest, pretty much anything destination themed gets me most of the time and when it’s a place I’ve actually been to, I’m just about a sure thing.

The Viva Havana scent is a bit much for me personally, but my personal preferences aside, it’s a very complex, very well done scent that honestly smells more Tunis to me than Havana. The fragrance is mostly sandalwood, with heavy vanilla at the bottom and spicy incense at the top. There’s some amber in here, that warms everything up. With the incense and the spices, I’m instantly reminded of a Tunis marketplace. The sandalwood is soft and warm and blends beautifully.

It’s close to Yankee’s Oud Oasis but has more sandalwood.

Overall, I love this scent because it has the power to invoke memories of my time in Tunis and Egypt. Do I want my house to smell like this all the time? No. Do I want a jar of this so that I can light it up every once in a while, sit around with friends and swap travel stories? Absolutely.

Layering wise, for an even better way to capture the feeling of Arabian markets, I layered this with Yankee’s Leather.

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